Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

YTEPP Lim­it­ed has tak­en a ma­jor step to­ward nar­row­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dig­i­tal di­vide with the launch of its new ICT Mo­bile Train­ing Bus, apt­ly named Train­ing on Wheels.

The in­no­v­a­tive unit was of­fi­cial­ly in­tro­duced on No­vem­ber 28 at the Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School.

Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Mont­gomery Guy said the mo­bile class­room was cre­at­ed to de­liv­er dig­i­tal learn­ing on the move, tak­ing tech­nol­o­gy train­ing di­rect­ly to un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties.

“As the na­tion ad­vances to­ward be­com­ing a ful­ly fledged knowl­edge-based so­ci­ety, the abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate the dig­i­tal world has be­come es­sen­tial,” he said.

“From job ap­pli­ca­tions to en­tre­pre­neur­ship, from on­line safe­ty to cre­ative ex­pres­sion, ICT com­pe­ten­cies are now crit­i­cal for mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion in the mod­ern econ­o­my.

YTEPP’s Mo­bile Train­ing Bus aims to en­sure that no cit­i­zen is left be­hind due to ge­o­graph­i­cal iso­la­tion, fi­nan­cial con­straints or lim­it­ed ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy.”

Guy not­ed that for many young peo­ple, adult learn­ers and re­trenched work­ers, up­skilling op­por­tu­ni­ties of­ten feel out of reach.

He said, “Train­ing on Wheels is YTEPP’s re­sponse to this re­al­i­ty. We are meet­ing peo­ple where they are.

“By de­liv­er­ing hands-on learn­ing di­rect­ly to com­mu­ni­ties, we are re­mov­ing bar­ri­ers while sup­port­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er mis­sion to fos­ter in­no­va­tion, re­silience and life­long learn­ing.”

The bus made its in­au­gur­al stop in Clax­ton Bay, where res­i­dents gained ac­cess to prac­ti­cal ICT train­ing de­signed to build con­fi­dence and com­pe­tence.

It will con­tin­ue its na­tion­wide tour with sched­uled vis­its to Rio Claro, Ma­yaro, Point Fortin, Moru­ga and sev­er­al oth­er com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Each stop is ex­pect­ed to un­lock new op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens ea­ger to em­brace dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

Par­tic­i­pants will have ac­cess to a wide range of pro­grammes, in­clud­ing Mo­bile App De­vel­op­ment, Au­to­CAD, Dig­i­tal Lit­er­a­cy, Web Page De­sign, Graph­ic De­sign, and So­cial Me­dia Eti­quette and Safe­ty.

Guy em­pha­sised that the ICT bus is more than a mode of trans­port—it rep­re­sents mo­bil­i­ty, op­por­tu­ni­ty and re­newed hope.

He reaf­firmed YTEPP’s com­mit­ment to ex­pand­ing ac­cess to skills train­ing, en­tre­pre­neur­ial de­vel­op­ment and per­son­al growth for cit­i­zens across the coun­try.